Loose Lines: Dealers Deranged! [Jul/Aug 1998]

No sooner had I applauded some of the big dealers for trying to off-load used bikes at almost competitive prices than the bastards upped the ticket tabs, ordered a new Porsche and made me look a right plonker in the process. The press reported a shortage of certain new cycles in official dealers and a firming up of used bike prices - but the same models were available from the shadow importers at the same cost as before whilst used prices floated ever downwards, at least on the private market, which is all that really matters. All very odd!

I phoned around the shadow importers pretending to be a punter with cash to burn (chance would be a fine thing), promised delivery within the week even on exotica like the R1. There were a couple of odd chaps, whose insistence on the manufacturer honouring the warranty and the willingness of local dealers to do the servicing seemed as likely as one of the Big Four phoning me up desperate for advice (most of what I suggest comes to pass about five years down the line, which may or may not be mere coincidence - what do you think, dear reader?).

Being a persistent little blighter I headed for the extreme north (beyond Birmingham, anyway) accompanied by thunder, lighting and usual insane antics of the civilians, fairly sure that I wouldn't be recognized in such virgin territory. I still don't know how the bastards in the south have sussed my identity, but there you go; all's fair in love and war.

One publisher up there had regaled me with tales of the local bints wearing minimal skirts and black stockings (he seemed put out when I said it must seem like Merthyr Tydfil, then)...er, sorry, I headed for a couple of large dealers pretending to be a punter with cash to burn, wearing my newish leather jacket and a clean pair of jeans (I'll be in a bloody suit, next!).

It took a while to adjust my mind to the outrageous accents but I finally managed to work out what they were talking about. I'm Welsh but dropped the accent a long time ago (much to the annoyance of various idiots), have no capacity for these strange languages people want to inflict upon the world - this is probably a quick way to get yourself fire-bombed, but there you go.

The salesmen showed the same kind of keenness, if not desperation, as an MP in a close run election, not willing to let me out of the door without a machine between my legs. One young lady thrust her breasts at me and put enough wattage into her smile to make flash bulbs redundant (but this probably had nothing to do with selling motorcycles). Her sales patter was somewhat lacking in technical detail but her insistence that motorcycling was the modern way to go wasn't one I'd dare argue with. I refrained from adding, not wanting to give my identity away, that few, if any, nineties motorcycles warranted the description of being modern.

I left empty-handed, though, more amused than annoyed - the prices were still no better for one year old machines than those on offer on the shadow circuit for new bikes. It's considered bad form to point this out - judging by the scowls and muttering that results. Try to help someone get a grip on the reality of the modern motorcycle marketplace, and what do you get? Neither thanks nor a large reduction in the ticket price, that's for sure!

I even tried waving around a dog-eared copy of Motorcycle News but to absolutely no purpose - I was treated like some innocent clown who'd walked in straight off the street with a desperate need to purchase some wheels. I can actually remember feeling like that - an awfully long time and extraordinary excess of motorcycles ago. I got screwed the once; just the once - you have to learn fast to survive.

I tried throwing in some half-nonsense (the actual way things will be in two, three, years time, though) about the way the factories were churning out yet newer models, not just every year but twice a year, and by the time they had finished with the game they would be like the computer companies - by the time one model gets into the punters' hands the factory is already producing an upgraded version. Tried to tell these chaps that as well as being overpriced their new bikes were already, or just about to be, completely and utterly out of date. Drop the ticket price by thirty percent and maybe we can do a deal? This is not the way to make friends and influence people...

Rather than showing me the door this usually bought out a shower of curses on the infidelity of the Jap factories and why can't the buggers produce long-lived models like they used to? Another rant about all the shadow importers spoiling the game for everyone (except the punters, surely?) and how they were all fly-by-night operators not even working out of any premises who could only be contacted by mobile phone; these guys obviously had a lot of bile they wanted to off-load: I must have that kind of face.

The motorcycling future is certainly going to be as weird as it is wonderful. I feel sorry for a company like Triumph, which obviously put huge effort into making the T595 the machine of the moment, only to blink too long and find it unable to compete with the latest tranche of Japanese hyperbikes, although if they repackaged the basic Trident as a low rent, low weight hack they could give the Bandits, and the like, a good run for their money. Starting by mounting the f..king swinging arm on the back of engine (yet more free advice ignored; oh well...).

Turning my attention from the new stuff to the nearly new... I always like to give these people a chance - drop a gentle hint about the frailty of the motorcycle they are trying to off-load, they’ll just go into a rant along the lines that no such fault ever existed, and, anyway, they have hundreds of punters lined up for said bike even if I'm the only one within half a mile of the showroom and if I don’t want to pay the going rate I can jolly well sod off. Back to the good old days, wander into some dealers, look at the ticket prices, gawp in wonder and walk straight back out. Just isn’t even worth arguing the toss with the dossers.

The going rate, to be completely irrelevant for the moment as neither you nor I are in Thailand, for a new 40hp, 250lb watercooled 150cc stroker single in Bangkok is just over a grand - an inferior version from Japan going for four times that in the UK. Even if you take off Thai VAT (10%) and add in 30% in UK VAT, import tax and shipping charges you still end up with a remarkably cheap motorcycle (£1200). It comes down to selling 100’s of thousands of bikes rather than ten’s or hundreds! Because they're made under licence from the Jap corp's they can’t actually compete on the world market - talk about taking the piss! There should be a law against this kind of anti-competitive practice (sounds good, huh? - should've been a lawyer).

Getting back to the weird motorcycle scene in the UK. Even with the huge discounts on offer from the parallel importers, there's still a way to go until prices reach a reasonable level. At the moment a seven grand retail 600 goes for five grand on the import circuit, but that's still an awfully long way from the factory gate price (a cost that includes all the research and development plus a decent return on capital) and even if the pound starts going down as it should do in mid-1999 (yes, yes, you don't won't to believe this but go back through some past UMG's and you'll find I got the collapse of the Japanese market spot on - I don't just read motorcycle magazines, y'know) there's still plenty of room for prices of new bikes to keep falling. Marvellous motorcycling kicks out there for the taking - if you know what you're doing.

Bill Fowler